Laid-Back, Vintage California Style in Echo Park

Name: Margaux Rust, Drew Daniels, Juniper and Gypsy
Location: Echo Park; Los Angeles, California
Size: 1000 square feet
Years lived in: Rented 1 year

We first got a peek at Margaux and Drew’s home during their House Call last fall, but since then they’ve already rearranged and refreshed their space (as they often do). The house was built around 1910, when the neighborhood was filling up with large Arts and Crafts or Victorian homes. Their house is one of the lucky ones, beautifully preserved with the original bits and pieces of history. The house gets natural light all day, which the plants love; and when it’s too hot, they spend the afternoons with the dogs out in the shade of two enormous jacaranda trees in the front yard.

It was really important for Margaux and Drew to make a home they could spread out in and where they could feel at ease. With Drew working as a cinematographer and Margaux a production designer, their work can run them ragged between the travel and the long days. This house has really served as an oasis to recover and ready themselves for the next project. They work from home in a quiet way, so there are lots of comfortable places to sit and focus on a script or set.

Most smaller pieces in the house come from their work and adventures. The corners and shelves are full of souvenirs and collected bits from projects with friends, or things they’ve picked up traveling. Margaux has been lucky to collect pieces handed down from her mother, along with all the artwork made by their talented family and friends. Everything in their house has some piece of life that goes with it.

When she does go out and look for a missing piece, or come across some really great something-or-another, usually what attracts her is some interesting piece of history—a curious wear mark that gives it a sense of place or a hint of its former self.

There is constant rearranging through the house. Margaux likes to experiment with space and relationships between pieces, adding and subtracting to the density to see what happens to the feeling of a room. She’s hit on a pretty good moment with this set-up, so it’ll probably stay this way for at least a month or two before she gets bored.

Our Style: Comfortable and curated

Inspiration: The style and taste of Georgia O’Keeffe and Frida Kahlo, cedar houses with skylights in Bolinas, adobe houses with terracotta in Marfa.

Favorite Element: My plants. Some of them are older than I am, and some of them have moved across the country and up and down the West Coast with me.

Biggest Challenge: Keeping the clutter and mess of busy lives at bay.

What Friends Say: That they feel at home.

Biggest Embarrassment: How high the dishes usually get in the sink.

Proudest DIY: The curtains, upholstering the calf-skin foot stool, making the dog beds out of old quilts.

Biggest Indulgence: King size bed in a tiny bedroom.

Best Advice: Don’t let the rules of the style stop you from making interesting decisions.

Dream Sources: All things vintage and well made.

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